March 5/84.
My Dear G’s:
We are exceedingly sorry to hear of the baby’s illness—& we can sympathise, for we have had four people sick in the house, one after the other, during the past 6 weeks—no respite from doctors, no honest unbroken sleep nights, & no interval between the recovery of one patient & the attack of the next one.
We like your plans, & think they are wise & good.
We are in a good deal of a puzzle. In your letter dated March 11, received a week ago, you say “Our money lasts till March 1”—when we supposed the new letter of credit for £200 would last you a year., at $80 a month, your usual figure. So I supposed the letter had failed to reach you, as you made no mention (no distinct mention, that is,) of having received it.
Therefore I told the banker to cable you [$]£20 to meet immediate expenses (which he has done—be sure you collect it, for I shall have to pay it anyway), & to forward a new letter & cancel the missing one. But now comes a letter from the Paris bank saying the new letter did not miscarry; that the old letter was duly exhausted & retired, & that the 600ƒ which you drew seventeen days before writing your letter to us of Feb. 11, was drawn from the said new letter. Of course there is a mistake somewhere, for one can’t use 10,000 francs in three weeks, even in Paris.
I think the 600ƒ were drawn from the old letter, & it was that sum which was going to last “till March 1,” & that the new letter reached you later. And I think that if we hadn’t got scared, we needn’t have fooled away twelve dollars in cabling.
Susie is racked all to pieces with the [mumps]—left as a legacy by Mr. Cable; Clara & Jean are now through with the infamous disease.
With love from all of us unto all of you,
S L C
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